


The Mafia isn’t all that bad, especially when you’re an intergalactic ‘hero’/mercanery

by FanFiction_Artist_Prototype



Series: Langst [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defenders
Genre: Gen, Langst? Kind of., Mafia AU, messed up timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-27 13:31:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14426448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FanFiction_Artist_Prototype/pseuds/FanFiction_Artist_Prototype
Summary: Hero.Mercanery.Two things Lance would describe himself as now.Go back three years and he’d describe himself as something different.Mafia.Rated T for language and mature topics





	The Mafia isn’t all that bad, especially when you’re an intergalactic ‘hero’/mercanery

Lance McClain didn’t exist until three years ago. Not that anybody knows that. Nobody needs to know that. So they don’t.

Of course, Iverson makes not so subtle hints that he  _knows_ Lance is lying. He just can’t do anything about it. After all everybody -even outside of the underworld- knows the Sanchez family is untouchable. Links with the Russians and the Italian Mafia mean they aren’t to be taken lightly, especially with them being the head mafia family in Cuba. He knows it gets under his captain’s skin, and he loves it.

At seven, Lance was taught how to shoot a gun. At eight he got his own one for his birthday. By nine, he had six different guns, and a switch blade. When he goes to The garrison at fifteen he has firearm experience of nine years under his belt and knife skills of five. That and a phone full of mercanery and assassin contacts. But, he’s leaving Cuba for the Garrison for that particular reason. Marco is more than willing to be the next Don. Then Veronica and Luis. It’s not like he’s needed, for succession anyway. 

Lance doesn’t enjoy knowing that he can kill without guilt, he’s been trained for it his whole life. Lance doesn’t enjoy knowing that he’s living in luxury because other people’s families are ruined by drug abuse. He’s not comfortable knowing that people are dying because of the guns his Papi is selling. But he is comfortable knowing that there are now no sex rings in a Cuba. His family made that very clear. No children or adults will ever be forced into things like that. Of course there will always be prostitution, but it’s less common and they’ve managed to nip it in the bud almost.

Getting back to his new persona.

Lance Sanchez died three years ago in a horrible accident, including a warehouse fire and a car bomb. And then two months later, Lance McClain pops out of the woodworks, dyed hair (different from the black of his father and the ginger of his mother) and contact lenses as well as make up that make him a different person. Though he gives up the coloured contacts going back to his Mamá’s Blue he’s still different.

Lance Sanchez had a public funeral that was attended by many, Hell he even got news coverage. Lance McClain was sat in his cargo pilot class trying to mesmerise flight protocol at the time. It’s perfect.

Until he’s sat there one night in the Garrison and holding his phone in his hands. It’s, ironically for a super rich family, an old flip phone his abulita used years ago. Lance isn’t a stranger to poverty, he’s been surrounded by it his entire time, and the year he spent living with a family in the poorest part of Cuba taught him to never take anything for granted. But anyway, he’s sat there looking through the contacts and it’s just so  **hard** to not press one of the contacts that he know will solve his problem.

His problem? His senior officer Captain Iverson. The smug bastard knows exactly who Lance is and makes just enough subtle references for Lance to catch on, but enough to make it obvious to anybody else. Even the most perceptive of people would only see it as a teacher bullying a student, nothing more. And Iverson had better make sure it doesn’t progress into anything more than subtle hints and overly harsh criticism. Because this old pile of crap that needs a new battery every two months and has to be held out a window at odd angles to get any good reception is also the only thing between him asking his Mamá for permission to place a hit.

Though he doesn’t actually have to ask, he knows his Mamá would kill  _him_ if he killed or asked someone to kill his teacher without informing her.

Then the second problem comes.

Keith Kogane.

It’s not much a stretch to say Lance does admire Keith. The guy apparently came from a rough background and worked his arse off to become the ‘greatest fighter pilot of his generation’ an impressive title for a boy who people knew less about than Lance McClain. It’s around maybe a month after he meets Keith that Iverson actually starts to  **bully** Lance.

’Keith wouldn’t of made that mistake,oh yes I forgot. He’s a fighter pilot. Your just a cargo pilot.’

’Be more like Kogane, McClain or do I need to get a toddler to explain it.’

He admits, it does hurt a little, but he’s had worse thrown at him in jest. The fucker that calls himself his teacher wouldn’t get any satisfaction out of Lance. Oh but does he create a burning hatred for the prodigy. And he wonky ever had one conversation with him.

Funny how that works.

* * *

 The next time he hears about Keith it’s rumours as to why he leaves, and surprisingly it’s from his and Hunk’s new roommate Pidge.

Hunk, was a large boy (both in height and waist length) with a heart too big for someone so strong. He never questioned Lance when he would spend nights studying and studying, flying through their revision but still manage to flunk the test with a big fat zero. And he never questioned why Lance would disappear for hours on end when he spoke to his Mamá or Papi in the phone, or even his siblings, talking about things that really shouldn’t be said over a phone.

Now Pidge on the other hand, Lance isn’t too sure on. The kids nice, but something is off. The gremlin, as Lance had taken to calling his green shirted friend, was savvy with technology with a tendency to hack the school systems and know far to much than they needed to.

If Lance wasn’t trying to steer clear of his Mafia life, he would of been sending recruiters after Pidge months ago. But as he’s not, he just watches and listens, taking note of how much exactly Pidge does and doesn’t know. But the gossip, which is the first thing he hears in months about Keith, was that he dropped out of school after his mentor/big brother was decleared dead after a space craft on Kerberos went missing. Lance can understand the guy going off the rails, he would too if anything happened to his family.

But he also wants to laugh - he doesn’t, but he wants to- at the image of Keith trying to make it in the world. With his attitude and skill with a knife he would be do well to stick away from the underworld, otherwise his skill set would either leave him stuck in contract after contract or with a bullet stuck in his brain.

* * *

 

When they first got to space, Lance had to admit. It was very different and at the start he didn’t realise the magnitude of it all. But he did later. For one, they were going to realise his hair was changing, stupid aliens and their lack of hair dye, but also his make up was going to run out soon. So the telltale Sanchez birthmark under his left eye and the small little scars that he had would show soon. But, technically he’d been dead three years, almost going on four now, they woundn’t recognise him anyway. Put it down to some wired doppelgänger shit at worst.

His hair dye runs out first, Lance doesn’t think he’s ever laughed so hard as he did when Coran shrikes at his hair shift. Whilst dyed his hair was a nice mix of his mother’s and fathers and he could play it off as natural, but really his hair was much closer to his fathers Raven colouring. Which showed through.

Hunk and Pidge were especially shocked, but and it only confirmed Lances thoughts, but the gremlin had figured out a while ago. “I noticed the hair dye boxes in the bathroom sometimes.” Pidge really was too much trouble some times.

Keith gets picked on by Shiro for it a little bit. Their hair is almost the same shade now. While Keith fussed and claimed over and over that they weren’t the same Lance evaluated how much longer he would have till his make up ran out.

* * *

 

Turns out it doesn’t even take till his make up to run out for his secret to be found out, well for the start of it anyway. It’s been nearly a year since he had to be zip lipped about everything, it isn’t supposed to slip out it just does.

”Wow, how do you hit the targets so well Lance? It’s like you’ve been doing it for years!”

Lance doesn’t even move from his crouched position in the crows nest, eye still on the scope trailing the ‘spy’ form of the gladiator bot and shooting it before Keith even knows he’s there. He also doesn’t answer really until he’s asked a different question.

”Have you ever used a gun before Lance?” It’s Shiro this time. And he knows Shiro’s implying a government run shooting range, not the one in the basement that’s locked behind a fake wall and ten different doors, or the one in the back garden where in hunting season he could sit for hours waiting for the ducks to fly past to take pot shots at them.

”Yeah. Since I was seven actually.” He doesn’t think anything of it. It’s the truth. Why would he say anything else? Of course as soon as it comes out he knows the way it could be taken out of context, though the out of context way would be the truth. The coms are silent for a little bit, then he hears a shriek, it’s Pidge and damnit, he can’t see the gladiator.

So, he does something he was trained to do on Earth, and escapes his ‘cornered’ down sniper nest and makes his way across a virtual battle ground to help his team mate. Granted he takes down quite a few hidden gladiator bots along the way before he reaches Pidge and shoots it with precision, and without hesitation in the back of the head. In a way that makes it seem like the execution pose is nothing new to him.

He knows for a fact stabbing/slashing somebody in the back still makes Shiro and Keith hesitant and Shiro has more alien blood on his hands than Lance probably does human. But that’s just one of the many things that separate Lance’s killings to Shiro’s.

Shiro HAD to kill them. Or he would be.

Lance had the CHOICE to kill them. Or wait and see if they helped or betrayed him.

Different lives, different worlds.

”I-I thanks Lance! Behind you!” And he spins round , cocks his gun mid turn and shoots another droid right through the heart, because where else is he going to shoot but the areas that guarantee death. It’s their first battle simulator and Lance knows the others won’t feel as comfortable with him watching their backs anymore, knowing how easily he can shoot something in theirs.

* * *

 The next occurrence is an accident. They had saved a planet that had a beach. Lance loved the beach. And in his foolishness had begged to go to the beach. And the princess had said yes, much to the gratitude of all but one Paladin. He remembered his scars and his tattoos that couldn’t be explained. And his make up wasn’t water proof. Yay.

“Holy shit Lance what happened to you!?”

He can admit some of them aren’t pretty. He’s got a pretty nasty one covering the top half of his back from where the fake rovers flame and shrapnel struck him. He’s also got the small little ridges on his biceps and lower stomach from knife fights gone wrong, and the one that covers his left hand from where a gun blew up in his hand. That one curls around the back of his hand and then potters around his wrist and stops a fifth of the way up his lower arm.

There are few on his legs, but they aren’t really that eventful. What they’re probably also zoning in on are the small tattoos. He has one of his family’s crest on his left hip, the top half visible over his swim shorts, then there’s the cursive Spanish on his lower back that reads his family motto ‘Life is chosen by God and Death by us’ rather lame compared to some of the Russian mottos he’d heard over the years, but still a deep meaning. He also has a third tattoo on his right ankle, like a anklet of thorns,of course only inked into his skin, but to represent the time he spent with the other family in Cuba. Their last name meant thorn and he did so much walking when living with them it felt appropriate to put something related to them somewhere relating to them.

He can only shrug, what can he say? They haven’t caught on yet, perhaps Shiro will, he knows in Japan tattoos are a sign of gangs, but Shiro seems to brush them off a western culture. The scars however, the Black Paladin seems to have an interest in. Especially as Lance has more than him.

”The one on my backs from ages ago, when the fake Rover blew up in the castle. The other ones are just from Galra that have snuck up on me.” He knows the lines are far to symmetrical for a blade, so he adds on a little anacdote of a galra soldier with claws slashing him. It seems to work and pinning the little ones on his legs down to old bikes and clumsy nature in apthe kitchen as a small child who sat on counter tops seem to do the trick.

The Spanish on his back however, isn’t easy to hide. In his lacking judgement he forgot that most Americans can read Spanish and also forgot that many of the other Paladins have spent their entire lives in the American school system. So it’s nit a surprise when he hears the shocked gasps.

”What type of thing is that to have on your body Lance!? When did you get that!?”

”When I was fifteen. My brothers and Sister have it, it’s like a tradition. So I just went and got it down before leaving Cuba for school.”

It lines up as well, McClains on documents have run a small tatto parlour for the past fourth years, so it’s not like it isn’t feasible for it to happen.

”Do you even know what that means!?” Of course he does. 

“Not really. I let my big bro pick my tatto.”

That’s probably when suspicion starts to settle in.

* * *

 

Then there’s his make up.

His make up runs out and he decided to just screw it and go out. Of course, the group are shocked. He’s got a strange little birthmark underneath his left eye that resembles a pentagram slightly and multiple little scars that slit his skin in various places.

Thay ask him about how he got his scars and Hunk and Pidge get a bit touchy feely, gripping his face slightly and leaning  _really_ close to get a better look.

Keith kind of just stares at him for a little bit, keeps his distance and observes, watches Lance and that’s what makes Lance think that maybe just maybe - one of Keith’s crazy conspiracies were about him. The boy had that many criptid sheets on that big bulletin wall, Lance isn’t surprised that he didn’t notice if he was.

His make up actually wasn’t that big of a deal, it appeared non of them even knew about Lance Sanchez and what he looked like or they just forgot, because nobody mentioned it.

Though, the two Altean’s do question him about it.

‘Why is your skin pigmented different here?’

‘What’s with the splash’s on your skin?’

’Is it like an Altean marking or does it have no purpose.’

Through the alien questions, he could tell the others got just that little bit interested, but, they didn’t notice anything or if they did - they didn’t bring it up.

* * *

 

It hits Lance in the middle of training the next week, and he has to fight these overwhelming giggles that just want to engulf him. So he bites onto his tongue really hard and tries to keep the shaking to a minimum. But it shows through and by the end of the training session,that granted they had won, the others are rushing to the nest to check on him.

And Lance can almost feel their confusion as they find him, back pressed tightly against the wall, knees superglued to his chest and form shaking with almost deranged giggles. His helmet is strewn to the side, and he can’t really describe in words, what’s making him lose his shit in a fit of giggles.

He can see Shiro approach him carefully, like he was a wild animal, the Black Paladin probably assuming that the war had finally cracked Lance’s sanity right open and this giggling shit was a nervous break down. It is a break down, just not a nervous one. More a break down of better judgements and patience.

They aren’t crowding him per say, but Shiro’s crouched right next to him and he can see Keith, Hunk and Pidge all sitting on the floor a few feet away. “Lance buddy, I need you to take deep, slow, calm breaths okay buddy.” He decided to play along with Shiro’s little game, honestly he could use the help shutting the giggles up because they’re beginning to get annoying.

When he does stop laughing he’s still squeezed up tight in on himself and he knows that everybody is watching his every move, trying to guess if he really has snapped or not.

”Buddy think you can talk?”

”What kind of question is that for me Shiro?” His accent slips a little without him realising, it’s deeper and more obvious than normal, the clear accent of someone who speaks Spanish is just so obvious. He can see Shiro’s eyes widen slightly, Hunk and Pidge -as per- aren’t surprised. They’ve probably heard Lance speak Spanish how many times? It was a way that he worked everything out, if he got angry at Iverson then he would commence a two cursing match in Spanish. In the safety of the dormitories. He couldn’t do much else.

”Why were you laughing bud? You know you can talk to us right?”

He leans forward a bit and Lance can just  _see_ the cogs turning in Keith’s head when he speaks. “It’s- Its nothing Shiro, just thought of something really, really funny.”

He can tell from how they’re looking at him, they still think he’s being hysterical.

”I was just thinking of how dead Iverson is, I mean, if he isn’t already two hundred feet below the murky ocean.”

Ah, there it was. That little ding in Keith’s mind and the shock of the others.

”You’re Lance Sanchez aren’t you.”

“Don’t be silly Keith, that guy died nearly four years ago why would-“

”No. He’s right. Took you all along time to notice, I knew Keith would figure it out first though.”

Theres a silence and he can see them replaying over everything and their faces drop at every little hint, conscious or not, that he dropped.

”Like I said, I just thought of how DEAD Iverson is gonna be. Oh god, I wish I could see that.” His team mates faces drop in disgust at his words and even Shiro recoils.

”Oh don’t be such big babies about it. We’ve all killed before, I remember you guys cheering at the Galra battle ship exploding yesterday, who knows how many living creatures were on there when it blew up. Why sometimes, I don’t even really think of ourselves as heroes. I mean heroes win all the time, we certainly don’t. I’d say we’re more...mercanery type folks, travelling the ever expanding space between us and the Galra empire in search of our next target.”

He can see it an on them and they stare at him as he finishes: “If anything, I feel right at home. We’re almost like the space Mafia.”

 


End file.
